Decision:
The Chair invited Paul Chambers, co-founder of PoetsIN charity, to give a verbal presentation for Members in support of their grant application.
Minutes:
The Chair invited Paul Chambers, co-founder of PoetsIN charity, to give a verbal presentation for Members in support of their grant application and advised:
· He co-founded the charity and this came from his own diagnosis with mental health illness as an adult, but having had to deal with the issues throughout his life, often through self-medication.
· The charity aims to offer a creative means to manage wellbeing, through writing poetry, fiction and letters.
· Staff involved all have lived experience of mental health illness, from core staff to volunteers and programme leads.
· It has been running for 15 years with experience across various sectors, including the NHS, prisons and schools.
· The scheme was very successful, with 99% of having reported a decline in symptoms following their attendance and 100% reported benefits within 5 years.
· Since the lockdowns there had been a focus on schools, offering mentoring, 1 to 1 support and a 6 week programme.
· There had been an increase in self-referrals to the service from under 18s, which can reach up to 10 per day, whereas previously referrals had come from outside organisations.
· The charity also offer a buddy service, which offers whole round care with access to this 24/7 via phone, messaging and online.
· The funding applied for would be to fund 10 1-hour long workshops in schools, with 30 students able to attend each workshop. These workshops would be a light-touch approach, offering fast paced and fun activities which provide attendees with ways to cope with issues, anxiety and stress and create happiness. It will also promote the free tools to available to use following the session.
· Some users who require further support will feel motivated and encouraged to speak up about their issues at the sessions due to it being a safe environment.
· Had spoken with an MP on the issue recently and attended parliament to provide evidence of their work.
· The benefit of the scheme was not only to the users themselves, but they then feel motivated to pass on skills and knowledge to friends, family and their peers.
The following Members asked questions:
· Councillor Sam Collins
· Councillor Richard Thake
· Councillor James Denselow
· Councillor Val Bryant
· Councillor Clare Billing
In response to questions Mr Chambers advised:
· While 300 people may not seem like enough, this offers a start and will then allow for further collaborative funding applications. Grants have become increasingly difficult to get, but the charity were looking a large levels of funding from elsewhere.
· If more funding was available the charity has the capacity to run more events than proposed.
· Schools were initially sceptical of the free offering being proposed, but the charity has worked with local organisations to build its reputation which has seen an increase in desire for schools to offer the scheme.
· The people running the workshops all have lived experience and therefore they have never found an issue with encouraging participation from students when this has been run in schools before.
· The session can be delivered as an assembly, virtually, after-school and, as has happened in the past, school staff can allocate certain students to the session.
· There was not an issue of competition between services such as this, but rather offers support to all, even when they may have previously been turned away from larger organisations.
· Sometimes workshops can be more engaging and positive for younger people than a traditional counsellor session.
· There are more provisions for adults dealing with mental health issues.
Councillor Richard Thake offered to provide further funding from his Locality Budget as Herts County Councillor, on the condition that Hitchin Boys School take up the offer of the workshops due to the attendance of students from across his division at the school.
Following advice from another Councillor, Councillor Thake revised his offer to allocated further funding from the Locality Budget, if any Hitchin schools took up the workshop offer, for the same reason as previously given.
The Assistant Community Engagement Officer noted that this scheme was a good, different addition to the support available already and the charity have worked hard to network with local community groups. The scheme will appeal to certain individuals who do not feel a traditional approach to support is for them and should appeal to Hitchin schools.
Councillor Ian Albert advised that while increasing funding for this application was possible, he was reluctant to given the work Officers had put into this.